| Serbia Trying to Recover From Growing Pains in Eurobasket Qualifier |
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| Written by Adam Miller | |
| Monday, 08 September 2008 | |
 Serbia finished 14th at the European Championship in 2007, knocking it completely out of the Olympics and now must fight for a spot in the 2009 Eurobasket. If Serbia does not fare well at Eurobasket, it will be out of international competitions until at least 2012, meaning it will be at least a six-year drought since it has qualified for a major competition. One of the low-points for Serbia this year was a humiliating 72-70 loss against Iran, a team that despite having a very promising tournament was winless in all five games of the preliminary round during the Olympics. It’s starting to look like Serbia is finally catching a break. Serbia is currently 4-1 with a recent blowout win over Italy. The competition isn’t exactly noteworthy since the best teams are exempt from this tournament and the team doesn’t have to play teams in other groups. Yet this is the first sign of good news that Serbia has had in a long time. The future is looking very promising considering that the U-20 team has won the European Championship and some of those players could compete for the senior team next year. This team is very young with Nenad Krstic and Kosta Perovic creating a solid front-court. Serbia also features six guards on the team. Milos Vujanic is currently the floor-leader for that team, but the best young playmaker in Serbia, Stefan Markovic, is going to be a very good player for that national team. Experience is going to be the big question as this team is completely rebuilt from 2002. Vujanic is the only player from the 2002 World Championship team on the current roster. If Serbia can qualify for Eurobasket next year, it will have another chance to prove itself against good European competition. Even though Serbia is currently in a drought, it is still capable of dominating in the lower divisions. But at some point, that young talent has to develop in order to place itself back on top of the European basketball world. Serbia has too much pride as a basketball powerhouse to not qualify for the World Championships. This is not the same team as Italy, who has a few good players every so often, but is clearly proving in this qualifying tournament that it is for real. Because Serbia has the talent to establish itself as a great team again, but it will take some quick development by its young players.         Comments
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Now with one of the best coaches in the world Dusan Duda Ivkovic and officialy best young players in the world (Serba's young teams, U21, U19, U18, etc all won every single big competition there was in last two years, and by this I mean World Championships and European Championships) Serbia is preparing for olimpic games in London 2012, and EU championship will be good test to see how this young team is progressing.